Decline What is AAA?

[El Presidente]

Well first we gotta ask ourselves what's an ...

Wait, what?

 

[Tacgnol]

I generally define AAA as a game with high production values and "mainstream" appeal.

Doesn't necessarily mean a bad game in itself, but very often prone to many of the worst CURRENT_YEAR excesses.

 

[potatojohn]

When you're spending more on marketing than on production, it's AAA.

Includes journos getting wined and dined

 

[CanadianCorndog]

What most people call AAA or want to market as AAA is not really considered AAA by senior people in the industry. Even ten years ago that number shrank significantly.
https://www.gamesindustry.biz/artic...ple-a-console-studios-reduced-to-25-worldwide

 

[what am i doing]

To me, AAA means - won't be fun, won't be engaging, won't be interesting, designed by committee to appeal to borderline retarded people, horribly unoptimized.

 

[Inhabitants of Khorinis]

A game with no clear identity and focus. It follows the trends in setting, design, gameplay etc. to create a mostly shallow experience. Patheticaly tries to please as many people to sell the most copies.

 

[Assisted Living Godzilla]

It's a weird term some game journalist (who was probably thinking of AAA...as in the American Automonile Association) trying to be clever came up with for big budget video game. Now the problem with the term is it's too nebulous. Like, AAA is meant to be a quality assurance rating. Top of the line. But that's not how it was really ever used. But it also sometimes it's used that way. It's also used so nebulously when it comes to video games it seems it means different things to different people.

Is it big budget? It's AAA.

Does the game look good. It's AAA.

Is the game good and not a indie? It's AAA.

The funny thing about the big budget blockbuster thing is, at the time the term was coined, comparatively speaking, there really weren't big budget games. Like even when you'd hear about something like Modern Warfare 2's crazy budget, what you were hearing about was the marketing budget; the actual budgets on the other hand were what a mid range movie budget was. That's also why it was funny when they started talking about game budgets going up being the reason why games needed to cost more. That was like: Oh really, games need to cost more because your game that made like a billion dollar had a production budget a few million below Confessions of a Shopaholic? Now there are big budget games, but up until that Old Republic MMORPG I'm not sure there was a game with a production budget that was upward of $100 million.

I've seen people call Persona 5 and FromSoftware games AAA. Those are little low budget games with small teams. They're also, despite the hype around them, pretty niche as far as sales go. I think Elden Ring is FromSoftware's first real big brakeout hit. Not sure if it cost them much more to make.

 

[lycanwarrior]

What most people call AAA or want to market as AAA is not really considered AAA by senior people in the industry. Even ten years ago that number shrank significantly.
https://www.gamesindustry.biz/artic...ple-a-console-studios-reduced-to-25-worldwide

It's result of consolidation and enormous budgets AAA games increasingly need these days.

Similar to how the movie industry has shaken out, and not in a good way unfortunately.

 

[lycanwarrior]

It's a weird term some game journalist (who was probably thinking of AAA...as in the American Automonile Association) trying to be clever came up with for big budget video game. Now the problem with the term is it's too nebulous. Like, AAA is meant to be a quality assurance rating. Top of the line. But that's not how it was really ever used. But it also sometimes it's used that way. It's also used so nebulously when it comes to video games it seems it means different things to different people.

Is it big budget? It's AAA.

Does the game look good. It's AAA.

Is the game good and not a indie? It's AAA.

The funny thing about the big budget blockbuster thing is, at the time the term was coined, comparatively speaking, there really weren't big budget games. Like even when you'd hear about something like Modern Warfare 2's crazy budget, what you were hearing about was the marketing budget; the actual budgets on the other hand were what a mid range movie budget was. That's also why it was funny when they started talking about game budgets going up being the reason why games needed to cost more. That was like: Oh really, games need to cost more because your game that made like a billion dollar had a production budget a few million below Confessions of a Shopaholic? Now there are big budget games, but up until that Old Republic MMORPG I'm not sure there was a game with a production budget that was upward of $100 million.

I've seen people call Persona 5 and FromSoftware games AAA. Those are little low budget games with small teams. They're also, despite the hype around them, pretty niche as far as sales go. I think Elden Ring is FromSoftware's first real big brakeout hit. Not sure if it cost them much more to make.

Huge open world games likely cost Fromsoftware alot more to make, since my understanding that these type of games often have very expensive budgets.

 

[Nifft Batuff]

It's a concept teached in schools. To help kids learning to add fractions.

 

[SlamDunk]

AAA = Anti-Anti-Aliasing

This post brought to you by Jagged Alliance.

 

[deem]

I've seen people call Persona 5 and FromSoftware games AAA. Those are little low budget games with small teams. They're also, despite the hype around them, pretty niche as far as sales go. I think Elden Ring is FromSoftware's first real big brakeout hit. Not sure if it cost them much more to make.

I disagree with this statement regarding From Soft. Bloodborne was the game Sony used to sell PS4s. I heard normies mention Dark Souls, even if they have not played it. Not to mention the impact those games had on gaming landscape. They may not have cutting edge graphics and have a reputation for being exclusive due to their difficulty but they are not niche.

 

[Assisted Living Godzilla]

I've seen people call Persona 5 and FromSoftware games AAA. Those are little low budget games with small teams. They're also, despite the hype around them, pretty niche as far as sales go. I think Elden Ring is FromSoftware's first real big brakeout hit. Not sure if it cost them much more to make.

I disagree with this statement regarding From Soft. Bloodborne was the game Sony used to sell PS4s. I heard normies mention Dark Souls, even if they have not played it. Not to mention the impact those games had on gaming landscape. They may not have cutting edge graphics and have a reputation for being exclusive due to their difficulty but they are not niche.

Bloodborne was used to sell PS4s to a small but hardcore audience that might spring for a PS4 just for one game. That doesn't mean it's not a niche game though, and niche things get used to sell shit all the time. It sold a couple million in like its first year. PS4 Spider-Man sold over 13 million, and God of War 2018 was like 10 million. Wouldn't be surprised if the Last of Us PS4 remaster sold more than Blooborne too given the numbers that are out for it. To put things in perspective, when Sony made that deal for Dark Souls, Dark Souls was a cult game that'd sold a couple million. It was a much talked about cult series, I definitely remember the old Game Trailers guys were eagerly following Dark Souls, it was a high profile niche game, but it was still niche as far as sales went.

Having an impact doesn't mean you aren't niche. All it means is other developers like a thing you did. But let's be real, FromSoftware's impact basically amounts to a bunch of smaller indie developers making side scrolling takes, and some 3D takes more along the lines of Dark Souls that also happen to be made by (mostly) smaller studios. The Surge and Nioh come in 2017, Surge starts development in 2015, in 2015 Dark Souls games just seem to sell a couple million copies. It wasn't exactly like trying to go for CoD numbers, or trying to go for Skyrim numbers back then. Dark Souls combat is so very much like a good version of Elder Scrolls combat (functionally the way you attack by pressing a direct and the attack button is the same, but: enemy encounters are actually good, attacks feel better, the stamina system feels like it has a function...just overall the games combat is better) though that it's actually a little weird nobody was going for those Skyrim numbers with basically "Elder Scrolls but Dark Souls combat" five years ago with some kind of open world Dark Souls.

I guess you could say their stuff stopped being niche with Dark Souls 3, that one it turns out sold ten million across four years. I hadn't heard about those number before, until now. Pretty sure it launched pretty similar to the other games, and I hadn't really heard about its sales since then, but it sounds like that game had legs. Their last game, Sekiro, sold 5 million in 16 months. The Elden Ring number though sound like they're blockbuster numbers, it sounds like in 13 days they've sold more copies of Elden Ring than they've sold of Dark Souls 3 in six years.

 

[Assisted Living Godzilla]

It's a weird term some game journalist (who was probably thinking of AAA...as in the American Automonile Association) trying to be clever came up with for big budget video game. Now the problem with the term is it's too nebulous. Like, AAA is meant to be a quality assurance rating. Top of the line. But that's not how it was really ever used. But it also sometimes it's used that way. It's also used so nebulously when it comes to video games it seems it means different things to different people.

Is it big budget? It's AAA.

Does the game look good. It's AAA.

Is the game good and not a indie? It's AAA.

The funny thing about the big budget blockbuster thing is, at the time the term was coined, comparatively speaking, there really weren't big budget games. Like even when you'd hear about something like Modern Warfare 2's crazy budget, what you were hearing about was the marketing budget; the actual budgets on the other hand were what a mid range movie budget was. That's also why it was funny when they started talking about game budgets going up being the reason why games needed to cost more. That was like: Oh really, games need to cost more because your game that made like a billion dollar had a production budget a few million below Confessions of a Shopaholic? Now there are big budget games, but up until that Old Republic MMORPG I'm not sure there was a game with a production budget that was upward of $100 million.

I've seen people call Persona 5 and FromSoftware games AAA. Those are little low budget games with small teams. They're also, despite the hype around them, pretty niche as far as sales go. I think Elden Ring is FromSoftware's first real big brakeout hit. Not sure if it cost them much more to make.

Huge open world games likely cost Fromsoftware alot more to make, since my understanding that these type of games often have very expensive budgets.

There's a few modern ones with big budgets. Modern Rockstar games, from GTA4 onward have big budget. Cyberpunk 2077 also had a large budget; it also sound like development was totally unfocused, and it's got an online mode they haven't even released yet. Ubisoft stuff sounds like it can have big budgets.

God of War 2018 was apparently a smaller budget title. It may have actually had a smaller budget than God of War 3. Death Stranding sounds like it had a small budget. Smaller developers used to make open world sandbox games all the time and I doubt any of those had big budgets. I'd be surprised if like Avalanche Studios or Volition were spending GTA4 money on even their most recent games.

I would assume Elden Ring cost more to make than previously FromSoftware games, but I'd be surprised if it cost so much more that it was actually a big budget game. Bandai Namco was looking at sales of four million in Elden Ring's first five weeks. If it was a bigger budget game they'd likely be looking at something higher.

 

[Nifft Batuff]

I don't see many CoD-likes or Skyrim-likes these days. Indeed, I haven't seen many even in the past.

 

[Assisted Living Godzilla]

Elder Scrolls knockoffs have always been weird. For one thing they basically kind of stop post-Skyrim, which is the point you'd actually think you'd start seeing them the most. The other thing is they might actually play so differently from Elder Scrolls that a decade later or whatever it might seem weird to even think of this or that as some take on Elder Scrolls. Like, the Souls game's combat is so similar to Elder Scrolls combat in Oblivion I really wouldn't be surprised if Oblivion was an influential on Demon Souls...but Demon and Dark Souls aren't open world game with towns full of NPC so they never got lumped into that knockoff group. I could see Oblivion being the major video game influence on Demon Souls, more than even the studio's previous King's Field games. Those original Souls games feel like someone played Oblivion, figured out a way to make the combat better, but they didn't have the money to go open world, and the team probably didn't really even have the experience anyways. Then they make a second one, it's still not open world, but everything is now linked together like it is one big world. But nobody really plays Elder Scrolls for combat, even if they do end up doing a whole fucking lot of it, so a non-open world combat focused game might not make someone's mind jump to Elder Scrolls Oblivion in the same way something like Two Worlds or even Risen might.

Skyrim's big influence mostly just seemed to be RPGs that hadn't previously been open world went open world.

Call of Duty nobody really went after by trying to play like Call of Duty...or by feeling smooth and staying at 60 FPS. They weren't doing, like, Call of Duty Modern Warfare but it's sci-if, or Modern Warfare but it's like a John Woo action movie or something. Nobody seemed to look at Modern Warfare and go: How can we do this, but do it better? Instead you'd get a different feeling game that happened to be themed modern military, a different style of modern military FPS. You didn't even get like: Hey, this plays exactly like Modern Warfare but with stage layouts like you'd expect from Duke Nukem 3D and Goldeneye 007. When the thing people like most is how the thing feels to play, and how multiplayer and those multiplayer stages are, copying the general setting as opposed to the other stuff is probably the dumbest way of trying to get that audience. It's like when there were all those "Halo Killer" games, but none of them played anything like Halo, they just happened to be a range of sci-fi themed FPS games.

But set pieces, and being more cinematic with presentation becomes more of a thing after Modern Warfare. You definitely get more first and third person shooters taking place in a modern setting after Modern Warfare. It is weird how much game's seemed to copy CoD's general linearity given how much people made fun of that, and that people weren't really playing CoD for the single player.

 

[JarlFrank]

 

[Serus]

Angry Autists Anonymous

Also known as RPG Codex, the best place to discuss rpg games on the net (no irony). Best doesn't mean much if there little competition though.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

That doesn't mean it's not a niche game though,

from software fans thinking their games are niche games for h4dc0re g4m3rs despite the fact that they are some of the most normie reddit games in existence never gets old